
Class 

Book 

Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 






Honore de Balzac 



by 
MARY F. SANDARS 






NEW YORK 

DODD, ME AD & COMPANY 

1904 



/ 



RÉ- 



HONORE DE BALZAC 



Honore de Balzac 



by 
MARY F. SANDARS 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 

1904 



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Two- Copies ?; 

NOV 7 1904 

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CLASS ^ XXc, No; 

L/ O f y / 
COPY 8, 



Copyright, 1904, 

BY 

Dodd, Mead & Company 



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CHAPTER I 

Balzac's claims to greatness — The difficulty in attempting a complète 
Life — His complex character — The intention of this book. 

At a time when the so-called Realistic School is in the 
ascendant among novelists, it seems strange that little 
authentic information should hâve been publshed in 
the English language about the great French writer, 
Honoré de Balzac. Almost alone among his con- 
temporaries, he dared to cîaim the interest of the 
world for ordinary men and women solely on the 
ground of a common humanity. Thus he was the 
fîrst to embody in literature the principle of Burns 
that "a man for a' that"; and though this fact has 
now become a truism, it was a discovery, and an im- 
portant discovery, when Balzac wrote. He showed 
that, because we are ourselves ordinary men and 
women, it is really human interest, and not sensational 
circumstance which appeals to us, and that material 
for enthralling drama can be found in the life of the 
most commonplace person — of a middle-aged shop- 
keeper threatened with bankmptcy, or of an elderly 
musician with a weakness for good dinners. At one 
blow he destroyed the unreal idéal of the Romantic 
School, who degraded man by setting up in his place 
a fantastic and impossible hero as the only thème 

1 



2 BALZAC'S COMPLEX CHARACTER 

worthy of their pen; and thus he laid the foundation 
of the modem novel. 

His own life is full of interest. He was not a 
recluse or a bookworm; his work was to study men, 
and he lived among men, he fought strenuously, he 
enjoyed lustily, he suffered keenly, and he died pre- 
maturely, worn out by the force of his own émotions, 
and by the prodigies of labour to which he was im- 
pelled by the restless promptings of his active brain, 
and by the ever-pressing need for money. Some of 
his letters to Madame Hanska hâve been published 
during the last few years; and where can we read a 
more pathetic love story than the record of his seven- 
teen years' waiting for her, and of the tragic ending 
to his long-def erred happiness ? Or where in modem 
times can more exciting and of ten comical taies of ad- 
venture be found than the accounts of his wild and 
always unsuccessful attempts to become a millionaire? 
His friends comprised most of the celebrated French 
writers of the day ; and though not a lover of society, 
he was acquainted with many varieties of people, 
while his own personality was powerful, vivid, and 
eccentric. 

Thus he appears at first sight to be a fascinating 
subject for biography; but if we examine a little 
more closely, we shall realise the web of difficulties in 
which the witer of a complète and exhaustive Life of 
Blazac would involve himself, and shall understand 
why the task has never been attempted. The great 
author's money affairs alone are so complicated that 
it is doubtful whether he ever mastered them himself, 



DIFICULTY IN WBITING HIS LIFE 3 

and it is certainly impossible for any one else to 
understand them; while he managed to shroud his 
private life, especially his relations to women, in 
almost complète mystery. For some years after his 
death the monkish habit in which he attired himself 
was considered symbolic of his mental attitude; and 
even now, though the veil is partially lifted, and we 
realise the great part women played in his life, there 
remain many points which are not yet cleared up. 

Consequently any one who attempts even in the 
most unamibitious way to give a complète account of 
the great writer's life, is confronted with many blank 
spaces. It is true that the absolutely mysterious dis- 
appearances of which his contemporaries speak curi- 
ously are now partially accounted for, as we know 
that they were usually connected with Madame Han- 
ska, and that Blazac's sensé of honour would not allow 
him to breathe her name, except to his most intimate 
friends, and under the pledge of the strictest secrecy. 
His letters to her hâve allowed a flood of light to pour 
upon his hitherto veiled personality; but they are 
almost our only reliable source of information. 
Therefore, when they cease, because Balzac is with his 
lady-love, and we are suddenly excluded f rom his con- 
fidence, we can only guess what is happening. 

In this way, we possess but the scantiest inform- 
ation about the journeys which occupied a great part 
of his time during the last few years of his ife. We 
know that he travelled, regardless of expense and ex- 
haustion, as quickly as possible, and by the very 
shortest route, to meet Madame Hanska; but this 



4 BALZAC'S COMPLEX CHARACTER 

once accomplished, we can gather little more, and we 
long for a diary or a confîdential corrrespondent. In 
the first rapture of his meeting at Neufchâtel, he did 
indeed open his heart to his sister, Madame Surville; 
but his habituai discrétion, and his care for the réputa- 
tion of the woman he loved, soon imposed silence upon 
him, and he ceased to comment on the great drama of 
his life. 

The great versatility of his mind, and the power he 
pssessed of throwing himself with the utmost keen- 
ness into many absolutely dissimilar and incongruous 
enterprises at the same time, add further to the diffi- 
culty of understanding him. An extraordinary 
number of subjects had their place in his capacious 
brain, and the ease with which he dismissed one and 
took up another with equal zest the moment after, 
causes his doings to seem unnatural to us of ordinary 
mind. Léon Gozlan gives a curious instance of this 
on the occasion of the first reading of the " Ressources 
de Quinola." 

Balzac had recited his play in the green-room of 
the Odéon to the assembled actors and actresses, and 
before a most critical audience had gone through the 
terrible strain of trying to improvise the fîfth act, 
which was not yet written. He and Gozlan went 
straight from the hot atmosphère of the théâtre to 
refresh themseves in the cool air of the Luxembourg 
Gardens. Hère we should expect one of two things 
to happen. Either Balzac would be depressed with 
the ill-success of his fîfth act, at which, according to 
Gozlan, he had acquitted himself so badly that 



HIS VERSATILITY 5 

Madame Dorval, the principal actress," refused to 
take a rôle in the play; or, on the other hand, his 
sanguine tempérament would cause him to overlook 
the drawbacks, and to think only of the enthusiasm 
with which the first four acts had been received. 
Neither of thèse two things took place. Balzac " n'y 
pensait déjà plus." He talked with the greatest 
eagerness of the embellishments he had proposed to 
M. Decazes for his palace, and especially of a grand 
spiral staircase, which was to lead from the centre of 
the Luxembourg Gardens to the Catacombs, so that 
thèse might be shown to visitors, and become a source 
of profit to Paris. But of his play he said nothing. 
The reader of " Letters à l'Etrangère," which are 
written to the woman with whom Balzac was passion- 
ately in love, and whom he afterwards married, may, 
perhaps, at first sight congratulate himself on at last 
understanding in some degree the great author's 
character and mode of life. If he dives beneath the 
surface, however, he will find that thèse beautiful and 
touching letters give but an incomplète picture; and 
that, while writing them, Balzac was throwing much 
energy into schemes, which he either does not mention 
to his correspondent, or touches on in the most cursory 
f ashion. Therefore the perspective of his life is dif- 
ficult to arrange, and ordinary rules for gauging 
character are at fault. We find it impossible to 
folio w the principle, that because Balzac possessed 
one characteristic, he could not also show a diame- 
trically opposite quality — that, for instance, because 
tenderness, delicacy of feeling, and a high sensé of 



6 HONORE DE BALZAC 

révérence and honour were undoubtedly intégral 
parts of his personality, the stories told by his con- 
temporaries of his occasional coarseness must neces- 
sarilly be f aise. 

His own words, written to the Duchesse d' Abrantès 
in 1828, hâve no doubt a great élément of truth in 
them: "I hâve the most singular character I know. 
I study myself as I might study another person, and 
I possess, shut up in my five foot eight inches, ail the 
incohérences, ail the contrasts possible ; and those who 
think me vain, evtravagant, obstinate, high-minded. 
without connection in my ideas, — a f op, négligent, 
idle, without application, without reflection, without 
any constancy; a chatterbox, without tact, badly 
brought up, impolite, whimsical, unequal in temper. 
are quite as right as those who perhaps say that I am 
economical, modest, courageous, stingy, energetic, 
a worker, constant, silent, full of delicacy, polite, 
always gay. Those who consider that I am a coward 
will not be more wrong than those who say that I am 
extremely brave; in short, learned or ignorant, full 
of talent or absurd, nothing astonishes me more than 
myself. I end by believing that I am only,an instru- 
ment played on by circumstances. Does this kaléido- 
scope exist, because, in the soûl of those who claim to 
paint ail thèse affections themselves, so that they ma y 
be able, by the force of their imagination, to feel what 
they paint? And is observation a sort of memory 
suited to aid this lively imagination? 1 begin to 
think so." * 

" Correspondance," vol. i. p. 77. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 7 

Certainly Balzac's character proves to the hilt the 
truth of the rule that, with few exceptions in the 
world's history, the higher the development the more 
complex the organisation and the more violent the 
clashing of the divers éléments of the man's nature; 
so that his soûl resembles a fîeld of battle, and he 
wears out quickly. Nevertheless, because everything 
in Balzac seems contradictory, when he is likened by 
one of his friends to the sea, which is one and indivis- 
ible, we perceive that the comparison is not inapt. 
Round the edge are the ever-restless waves; on the 
surface the foam blown by fitful gusts of wind, the 
translucent play of sunbeams, and the clamour of 
storms lashing up the billows ; but down in the sombre 
depths broods the resistless, immovable force which 
tinges with its reflection the dancing and play above, 
and is the genius and fascination, the mystery and 
tragedy of the sea. 

Below the merriment and herculean jollity, so little 
represented in his books, there was deep, gloomy 
force in the soûl of the man who, gifted with an al- 
most unparralleled imagination, would yet grip the 
realities of the pathetic and terrible situations he 
evolved with brutal strength and insistence. The 
mind of the writer of " Le Père Goriot," " La Cou- 
sine Bette," and " Le Cousin Pons," those terrible 
tragédies where the Greek god Pâte marches on his 
victims relentlessly, and there is no staying of the 
hand for pity, could not hâve been merely a wide, 
sunny expanse with no dark places. Nevertheless, 
we are again puzzled, when we attempt to realise the 



8 HONORE DE BALZAC 

personality of a man whose imagination could soar 
to the mystical and philosophical conception of 
" Séraphita," which is full of religious poetry, and 
who yet had the power in " César Birotteau " to invest 
prosac and even sordid détails with absolute veri- 
similitude, or in the " Contes Drolatiques " would 
write, in Old French, stories of Rabelaisian breadth 
and humour. The only solution of thèse contradic- 
tions is that, partly perhaps by reason of great phys- 
ical strength, certainly because of an abnormally 
powerful brain and imagination, Balzac's thoughts, 
feelings, and passions were unsually tsrong, and were 
endowed with peculiar impetus and independence of 
each other; and from this resulted a versatility which 
caused most unexpected developments, and which 
fîlls us of smaller mould with astonishment. 

Nevertheless, steadfastness was decidedly the 
grounwork of the character of the man who was 
not dismayed by the colossal task of the Comédie 
Humaine; but pursued his work through discourage- 
ment, ill health, and anxieties Except near the end 
of his life, when, owing to the unreasonable strain to 
which it had been subjected, his powerful organism 
had begun to fail, Balzac refused to neglect his voca- 
tion even for his love affairs — a self-control which 
must hâve been a severe test to one of his tempéra- 
ment. 

This absorption in his work cannot hâve been very 
flattering to the ladies he admired; and one plausible 
explanation of Madame de Castries' coldness to his 
suit is that she did not believe in the dévotion of a 



HONORE DE BALZAC 9 

lover who, while paying her the most assiduous court 
at Aix, would yet write f rom five in the morning till 
half -past five n the evening, and only destow his Com- 
pany on her from six till an early bedtime. Even the 
adored Madame Hanska had to take a second place 
where work was conecerned. When they were both at 
Vienna in 1835, he writes with some irritation, ap- 
parently in answer to a remonstrance on her part, 
that he cannot work when he knows he has to go out ; 
and that, owing to the time he spent the evening be- 
f ore in her society, he must now shut himself up for 
fourteen hours and toil at " Le Lys dans le Vallée." 
He adds, with his customary force of language, that 
if he does not finish the book at Vienna, he will throw 
himself into the Danube! 

The great psychologist knew his own character 
well when, in another letter to Madame Hanska, who 
has complained of his frivolity, he cries indignantly: 
"Frivolity of character! Why, you speak as a good 
bourgeois would hâve done, who, seeing Napoléon 
turn to the right, to the left, and on ail sides to ex- 
amine his field of battle, would hâve said, ' This man 
cannot remain in one place; he has no fixed idea! " 

This change of posture, though constant, as Balzac 
says, with real stability, is a source of bewilderment 
to the reader of his sayings and doings, till it dawns 
upon him that, though pride, policy, and the usual 
shrinking of the sensitive from casting their pearls 
before swine, Balzac was a confirmed poseur, so that 
what he tells us is often more misleading than his 
silence. Léon Gozlan's books are a striking instance 



10 HONORE DE BALZAC 

of the fact that, with ail Balzac's jollity, his camara- 
derie, and his flow of words, he did not readily reveai 
himself, except to those whom he could thoroughly 
trust to understand him. Gozlan went about with 
Balzac very often, and was specially chosen by him 
time after time as a companion; but he really knew 
very little of the great man. If we compare his ac- 
count of Balzac's feeling or want of feeling at a cer- 
tain crisis, and then read what is written on the same 
subject to Madame Hanska, Balzac's enormous 
power of reserve, and his habit of deliberately mis- 
leading those who were not admitted to his confidence, 
may be guaged. 

George S and tells us an anecdote which shows how 
easily, from his anxiety not to wear his heart upon his 
sleeve, Balzac might be misunderstood. He dined 
with her on January 29th, 1844, after a visit to Rus- 
sia, and related at table, with peals of laughter and 
apparently enormous satisfaction, an instance which 
had corne under notice of the ferocious exercise of ab- 
solute power. Any stranger listening, would hâve 
thought him utterly heartless and brutal, but George 
Sand knew better. She whispered to him : " That 
makes you inclined to cry, doesn't it?"* He an- 
swered nothng; left off laughing, as if a spring in 
him had broken was very serious for the rest of the 
evening, and did not say a word more about Russia. 

Balzac looked on the world as an arena; and as the 
occasion and the audience arose, he suited himself 
with the utmost aplomp to the part he intended to 

* " Lettres à l'Etrangère." 



HONORE DE BALZAC 11 

Balzac is often difficult to discover. Sometimes he 
would prétend to be rich and prosperous, when he 
thought an editor would thereby be induced to ofFer 
him good terms; and sometimes. when it suited his 
purpose, he would make the most of his poverty and 
of his pecuniary embarrassments. Madame Hanska. 
from whom he situation after the f ailure of Werdet. 
whom he likens to the vulture that tormented Pro- 
metheus; but as it would not answer for Emile de 
Girardin, the editor of La Presse, to know much 
about Balzac's pecuniary difficulties, Madame de Gi- 
raddin is assured that the report of Werdet's sup- 
posed disaster is false, and Balzac virtuously re- 
marks that in the présent century is never believed 
in.* Sometimes his want of candour appears to hâve 
its origin in his hatred to allow that he is beaten, and 
there is something childlike and naïve in his vanity. 
We are amused when he informs Madame Hanska 
that he is giving up the Chronique de Paris— which, 
after a brilliant flourish of trumpets at the start, was 
a complète failure — because the speeches in the 
Chambre des Députés are so silly that he abandons 
the idea of taking up politics, as he had intended to 
do by means of journalism. In a later letter, how- 
ever, he is obliged to own that. though the Chronique 
has been, of course, a brilliant success, money is lack- 
ing, owing to the wickedness of several abandoned 
characters, and that therefore he has been forced to 
bring the publication to an end. 

Of one vanity he was completely free. He did not 

" Autour de la Table," by George Sand. 



12 HONORE DE BALZAC 

pose to posterity. Of his books he thought much — 
each one was a masterpiece. more glorious than the 
last; but he never imaginée! that people would be in 
the least interested in his doings, and he did not care 
about public opinion of him. Nevertheless there was 
accasionally a gleam of joy. when some one unex- 
pectedly showed spontaeous admiration for his work. 
For instance, in a Viennese concert-room, where the 
whole audience had risen to do honour to the great 
author, a young man seized his hand and put it to 
his lips, saying, " I kiss the hand that wrote ' Séra- 
phita,' and Balzac said afterwards to his sister, " They 
may deny my talent, but the memory of that student 
will always comfort me." 

His genius would, he hoped, be acknowledged ono 
day by ail the world; but there was a singular and 
lovable absence of self-consciousness in his character, 
and a peculiar humility and childlikeness under his 
braggadocio and apparent arrogance. Perhaps this 
was the source of the power of fascination he un- 
doubtedly exercised over his contemporaries. 
Nothing is more noticeable to any one reading about 
Balzac than the différence between the tone of 
amused indulgence with which those who knew him 
personally, speak of his peculiarities, and the con- 
temptuous or horrifîed comments of people who only 
heard from others of his extraordinary doings. 

He had bitter enemies as well as devoted friends; 
and his fighting proclivities, his objection to allow 

* "La Genèse d'un Roman de Balzac," p. 152, by Le Vicomte de 
Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 13 

that he is ever in the wrong, and his habit of blam- 
ing others for his misf ortunes, hâve had a great eff ect 
in obscuring our knowledge of Balzac's life, as the 
people he abused were naturally exasperated, and 
took up their pens, not to give a f air account of what 
really happened, but to justify themselves against 
Balzac's aspersions. Werdet's book is an instance 
of this. Beneath the extravagant admiration he ex- 
presses for the "great writer," with his "heart of 
gold," a glint can be seen from time to time of the 
animus which inspired him when he wrote, and we 
f eel that his statements must be received with caution, 
and do not add much to our real knowledge of Balzac. 
Nevertheless, though there are still blank spaces 
to be fîlled, as well as difficulties to overcome and puz- 
zles to unravevl, much fresh information has lately 
been discovered about the great writer. notably the 
" Lettres à l'Etrangère," published in 1899, a col- 
lection of some of the letters written by Balzac, from 
1833 to 1848, to Madame Hanska, the Polish lady 
who af terwards became his wife. Thèse letters, which 
are the property of the Vicomte de Spoeiberch de 
Lovenjoul, give many interesting détails, and alter 
the earlier view of several points in Balzac's career 
and character ; but the volume is large, and takes some 
time to read. It is therefore thought, that as those 
who would seem compétent, by their knowledge and 
skill, to overcome the difficulties of writing a complète 
and exhaustive life are silent, a short sketch, which 
can claim nothing more than correctness of détail, 
may not be unwelcome. It contains no attempt to 



14 HONORE DE BALZAC 

give what could only be a very inadéquate criticism 
of the books of the great novelist ; for that, the reader 
must be referred to many able works by learned 
Frenchmen who hâve made a lifelong study of the 
subject. It is written, however, in the hope that the 
admirers of " Eugénie Grandet " and " La Père Go- 
riot " may like to read something of the author of 
thèse masterpieces, and that even those who only know 
the great French novelist by réputation may be in- 
terested to hear a little about the restless life of a man 
who was a slave to his genius — was driven by its in- 
sistent voice to engage in work which was enormously 
difficult to him, to lead an abnormal and unhealthy 
life, and to wear out his exubérant physical strength 
prematurely. He died with his powers at their high- 
est and his great task unfinished; and a sensé of 
thankfulness for his own mediocrity fills the reader, 
when he reaches the end of the life of Balzac. 



CHAPTER II 

Balzac's appearance, dress, and personality — His imaginary world and 
schemes for making money — His family, childhood, and school-days. 

According to Théophile Gautier, herculean jollity 
was the most striking characteristic of the great 
writer, whose genius excele in sombre and often sor- 
did tragedy. George S and, too, speaks of Balzac's 
" serene soûl with a smile in it"; and this was the 
more remarkable, because he lived at a time when dis- 
content and despair were considered the sign-manual 
of talent. 

Physically Balzac was far from satisfying a ro- 
mantic idéal of fragile and enervated genius. Short 
and stout, square of shoulder, with an abundant mane 
of thick black hair— a sign of bodily vigour — his 
whole person breathed intense vitality. Deep red 
lips, thick, but fînely curved, and always ready to 
laugh, attested, like the ruddiness in his full cheeks, 
to the purity and richness of his blood. His fore- 
head, broad, and unwrinkled, save for a line between 
the eyes, and his neck, thick, round, and columnar, 
contrasted in their whiteness with the colour in the 
rest of the face. His hands were large and dimpled 
— "beautiful hands," his sister calls them. He was 
proud of them, -and had a slight préjudice against 
he gave spécial directions to David when his bust was 

15 



16 HONORE DE BALZAC 

any one with ugly extremities. His nose, about which 
taken, was well eut, rather long, and square at the 
end, with the lobes of the open nostrils standing out 
prominently. As to his eyes, according to Gautier, 
there were none like them.* They had inconceivable 
life, light, and magnetism. They were eyes to make 
an eagle lower his lids, to read through walls and 
hearts, to terrify a wild beast — eyes of a sovereign, 
a seer, a conqueror.. Lamartine likens them to 
" darts dipped in kindliness." Balzac's sister speaks 
of them as brown; but, according to other contem- 
poraries. they were like brilliant black diamonds, 
with rich reflections of gold, the white of the eyeballs 
being tinged with the flre of the genius within, to 
read soûls, to answer questions bef ore they were asked, 
and at the same time to pour out warm rays of kindli- 
ness from a joyous heart. 

At ail points Balzac's personality differed from 
that of his contemporaries of the Romantic School — 
those transcendental geniuses of despairing temper, 
who w r ere utterly hopeless about the prosaic world in 
which, by some strange mistake, they found them- 
selves; and from which they felt that no possible in- 
spiration for their art conld be drawn. So little at- 
tuned were thèse unfortunates to their commonplace 
surroundings that, after picturing in their writings 
either fîendish horrors, or a beautiful, impossible at- 
mosphère, peopled by beings out of whom ail like- 
ness to humanity had been eliminated, they had in- 

* " Portraits Contemporains — Honoré dv Balzac," by Théophile 
Gautier. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 17 

frequently lost their mental balance altogether, or 
hurried by their own act out of a dull world which 
could never satisfy their lively imaginations. Balzac, 
on the other hand, loved the world. How. with the 
acute powers of observation, and the intuition almost 
to second sight, with which he was gifted, could he 
help doing so? The man who could at will quit his 
own personality, and invest himself with that of an- 
other; who would follow a workman and his wife on 
their way home at night from a music-hall, and listen 
to their discussions on domestic matters till he im- 
bibed their life, f elt their ragged clothing on his back, 
and their desires and wants in his soûl, — how could he 
find life dull, or the most commonplace individual un- 
interesting? 

In dress Balzac was habitually careless. He would 
rush to the printer's office, after twelve hours of liard 
work, with his hat drawn over his eyes, his hands 
thrust into shabby gloves, and his feet in shoes with 
high sides, worn oyer loose trousers, which were 
pleated at the waist and held down with straps. Even- 
in society he took no trouble about his appearance, 
and Lamartine describes him as looking, in the salon 
of Madame de Garardin, like a schoolboy who has 
outgrown his clothes. Only for a short time, which 
lie describes with glee in his letters to Madame 
Hanska, did he pose as a man of fashion. Then he> 
wore a magnifîcant white waistcoat, and a blue coat 
with gold buttons; carried the famous cane, with a 
knob studded with turquoises, celebrated in Madame 
de Garardin's story, " La Canne de Monsieurde Bal- 



18 HONORE DE BALZAC 

zac"; and drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping 
horse, with a tiny tiger, whom lie christened Anchise, 
perched on the back seat. This phase was quickly 
over, the horses were sold, and Balzac appeared no 
more in the box reserved for dandies at the Opéra. 
Of the fashionable outfit, the only property left was 
the microscopic groom — an orphan, or whom Balzac 
took the greatest care, and whom he visited daily dur- 
ing the boy's last illness, a year or two af ter. Thence- 
forward he reverted to his usual indifférence about 
appearances, his only vanity being the spotless clean- 
liness of his working costume — a loose dressng-gown 
of white flannel or cashmere, made like the habit of 
a Bénédictine monk, which was kept in round the 
waist by a silk girdle, and was always scrupulously 
guarded from ink-stains. 

Naïve as a child, anxious for sympathy, frankly 
deligted with his own masterpieces, yet modest in 
a fashion peculiar to himself, Balzac gave a domi- 
nant impression of kindliness and bonhomie, which 
overshadow T ed even the idea of intellect. To his 
friends he is not in the fîrst place the author of the 
" Comédie Humaine," designed, as George Sand 
rather grandiloquently puts it, to be " an almost uni- 
versal examination of the ideas, sentiments, customs, 
habits, législation, arts, trades, costumes, localities — 
in short, of ail that constitutes the lives of his con- 
temporories " * — that claim to notice recèdes into the 
background. and what is seen clearly is the bon cama- 
rade, with his great hearty laugh, his jollity, his flow 

" Autour de la Table," by George Sand. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 19 

of language, and his jokes, often Rabelaisian in 
flavour. Of course there was another side to the 
picture, and there were times in his hardset and 
harrassing life when even his vivacity failed him. 
Thèse moods were, however, never apparent in So- 
ciety; and even to his intimate men friends, such as 
Théophile Gautier and Léon Gozlan, Balzac was al- 
ways the delightful, whimsical companion, to be 
thought of and written of af terwards with an amused, 
though aff ectionate smile. Only to women, his prin- 
cipal eonfldantes, who played as important a part 
in his life as they do in his books, did he occasionally 
show the discouragement to which the artistic nature 
is prone. S orne times the state of the weather, which 
always had a great effect on him, the difficulty of his 
work, the fatigue of sitting up ail night and his 
monetary embarrassments, brought him to an ex- 
trême state of dépression, both physical and mental. 
He would arrive at the house of Madame Surville, 
his sis ter. who tells the s tory, hardly able to drag him- 
self along, in a gloomy, dejected state, with his skin 
sallow and jaundiced. 

"Don't console me," he would say in a faint voice, 
dropping into a chair; " it is useless — I am a dead 
man." 

The dead man would then begin, in a doleful voice, 
to tell of his new troubles; but he soon revived, and 
the words came f orth in the most ringing tones of his 
voice. Then, opening his proofs, he woul drop back 

' Yes, I am a wrecked man, sister! " 



20 HONORE DE BALZAC 

" Nonsense! No man is wrecked with such proofs 
as those to correct." 

Then he would raise his head. his face would un- 
pucker little by little, the sallow tones of his skin 
would disappear. 

" My God, you are right! " he would say. " Those 
books will make me live. Besides, blind Fortune is 
hère, isn't she? Why shouldn't she protect a Balzac 
as well as a ninny? And there are always ways of 
wooing her. Suppose one of my millionaire friends 
(and I hâve some), or a banker, not knowing what 
to do with his money, should corne to me and say, 
' I know your immense talents, and your anxieties : 
you want such-and-such a sum to free yourself ; ac- 
cept it f earlessly ; you will pay me ; your pen is worth 
millions ! " That is ail I want, my dear." * 

Then the " child-man," as his sister calls him, would 
imagine himself a member of the Institute; then in 
the Chamber of Peers, pointing out and reforming 
abuses, and governing a highly prosperous country. 
Finally, he would end the interview with, "Adieu! 
I am going home to see if my banker is waiting for 
me "; and would départ, quite consoled. with his usual 
hearty laugh. 

He lived, his sister tells us. to a great extent n 
a world of his own, peopled by the imaginary char- 
acters in his books, and he would gravely discuss 
its news, as others do that of the real world. Some- 
times he was delighted with the grand match he had 

* " Balzac, sa Vie et ses Œuvres, d'après la Correspondance," by 
Mme. L. Surville {née de Balzac). 



HONORE DE BALZAC 21 

planned for his hero; but often affairs did not go so 
well, and perhaps it would give him much anxious 
thought to marry his heroine suitably, as it was neces- 
sary to find her a husband in her own set, and this 
might be difficult to arrange. When asked about the 
past of one of his créations, he replied gravely that 
lie " had not been aequainted with Monsieur de Jordy 
before he came to Nemours," but added that, if his 
questioner were anxious to know, he would try to 
flnd ont. He had many fancies about names, de- 
claring that those which are invented do not give iife 
to imaginary beings, whereas those really borne by 
some one endow them with vitality. Léon Gozlar* 
says that he was dragged by Balzac half over Paris 
in search of a suitable name for the hero of a story 
to be published in the Revue Parisienne. After they 
had trudged through scores of streets in vain, Balzac, 
to his intense joy, discovered " Marcas " over a small 
tailor's shop. to which he added, as " a flame. a plume, 
a star," the initial Z. Z. Marcas conveyed to him the 
idea of a great, though unknown, philosopher, poet, 
or silversmith, like Benvenuto Cellini ; he went no 
farther, he was satisfîed- — he had found " the name of 
names." * 

Many are the amusing anecdotes told of Balzac's 
schemes for becoming rich. Money he struggled for 
unceasingly, not from sordid motives, but because it 
was necessary to his conception of a happy life., 
Without its help he could never be freed from his 
burden of debt, and united to the grande dame of his 

* " Balzac en Pantoufles,," by Léon Gozlan. 



22 HONORE DE BALZAC 

fancy, who must of necessity be posed in élégant 
toilette, on a suitable background of costly brocades 
and objects of art. Nevertheless, in spite of ail his 
efforts, and of a capacity and passon for work which 
seemed almost superhuman, he never obtained free- 
dom from monetary anxiety. Viewed in this light. 
there is pathos in his many impossible plans for mak- 
ing his fortune, and freeing himself from the strain 
which was slowly killing him. 

Some of his projected enterprises were wildly fan- 
tastic, and prove that the great author was, like many 
a genius, a child at heart; and that, in his eyes, the 
world was not the prosaic place it is to most men and 
women. but an enchanted globe, like the world of 
" Treasure Island," teeming with the possibility of 
strange adventure. At one time he hoped to gain a 
substantial income by growing pineapples n the little 
garden at Les Jardies, and later on he thought money 
might be made by transporting oaks from Poland to 
France. For some months he believed that, by means 
of magnetism exercised on somnambulists, he had 
discovered the exact spot at Ponte à Pitre where 
Toussaint-Louverture hid his treasure, and after- 
shot the negroes he had employed to bury it, lest they 
should betray its hiding-place. Jules Sandeau and 
Théophile Gautier werec hosen to assist in the enter- 
prise of carrying off the hidden gold, and were each 
to receive a quarter of the treasure, Balzac, as the 
leader of the venture, taking the other half. The 
three friends were to start secretly and separately 
with spades and shovels, and, their work accomplished, 



HONORE DE BALZAC 23 

were to put the treasure on a brig which was to be in 
waiting, and were to return as millionaires to France. 
This brilliant plan failed, because none of the three 
adventures had at the moment money to pay his 
passage out ; and no doubt, by the time that the neces- 
sary funds were forthcoming, Balzac' s fertile brain 
was engaged on other enter prises.* 

The foundation of his pecuniary misfortunes was 
laid bef ore his birth, when his f ather, forty-fiVe years 
old and unmarried, sank the bulk of his fortune in 
life annuities, so that his son was in the unfortunate 
position of starting life in very comfortable circum- 
stances, and of finding himself in want of money just 
when lie most needed it. 

Balzac's father was born in Languedoc in 1746, 
and we are told by his son that he had been Secretary 
remembers hearing M. de Molleville cry out, " The 
Constitution ruined Louis XVI.. and the Charter will 
kill the Bourbons!" "No compromise" formed an 
essential part of the creed of the Royalists at the 
Restoration. 

When M. de Balzac* married, in 1797, he was in 
charge of the Commissariat of the Twenty-second 
Military Division; and in 1798 he came to live in 
Tours, where he had bought a house and some land 
near the town, and where he remained for nineteen 
years. Hère, on May 16th, 1799, St. Honoré's day, 
his son, the celebrated novelst, was born, and was 
christened Honoré after the saint. 

* " Portraits Contemporains — Honoré de Balzac," by Théophile 
Gautier. 



24 HONORE DE BALZAC 

Old M. de Balzac was in his own way literary, and 
had written two or three pamphlets, one on his f avour- 
ite subject — that of health. He seems to hâve been a 
man of much orginality, many pecculiarities, and 
much kindness of heart. He was evidently impulsive, 
live his celebrated son, and he certainly made a cul- 
pable mistake, and a cruel one for his f amily, when he 
rashly concluded that he should always remain a 
bachelor, and arranged that his income should die with 
him. He afterwards hoped to repair the wrong he 
had thus done to his children, by outliving the other 
shareholders and obtaining a part of the immense 
capital of the Tontne. Fortunately for himself he 
possessed extraordinary optimism, and power of ex- 
clu dng fro mhis mind the possibility of ail unpleasant 
contingencies — qualities which he handed on n full 
measure to Honoré. He therefore kept himself 
happy in the monetary dsappointments of his la ter 
life, by thinking and talking of the millions his child- 
ren would inherit from their centenarian f ather. For 
their sakes it was necessary that he should take care 
of his health, and he considered that, by mantaining 
the " equilibrium of the vital forces," there was 
absolutely no doubt that he would live for a hundred 
years more. Therefore he folio wed a strict regimen, 
and gave himself an infinité amount of trouble, as well 
as amusement, by his minute arrangements. 

Unfortunately, however, the truth of his théories 
could never be tested, as he died in 1829, at the âge of 
eighty-three, from the effects of an opération: and 
Madame de Balzac and lier f amily were left to face 



HONORE DE BALZAC 25 

the stern facts of life, denuded of the rose-coloured 
haze n which they had been clothed by the kindly old 
enthusiast. Balzac's mother certainly had a hard life, 
and fro what we hear of her nervous, excitable nature 
— inherited apparently from her mother, Madame 
Sallambier — we can hardly be astonished when Balzac 
writes to Madame ITanska, in 1835, that if her mis- 
fortunes do not kill her, it s f eared they will destroy 
her reason. Nevertheless, she outlived her celbrat- 
ed son, and is mentoned by Victor Hugo, when he 
visited Balzac's deathbed, as the only person in the 
room, except a nurse and a servant.* 

She was many years younger than her husband — 
a beauty and an heiress; and she evidently had her 
own way with the easy-going old M. de Balzac, and 
was the moving sprit in the household: so that the 
ease and absence of friction in her early life must 
hâve made her subséquent troubles and humiliations 
especially galling. Besides Honoré, she had three 
children Laure, afterwards Madame Surville; 
Laurence, who died young; and Henry, the black 
sheep of the famly, who returned from the colonies, 
after having made an unsatisfactory marriage, and 
who, during the last years of Honoré de Balzac's 
life, required constant monetary help from his rela- 
tions. 

Her two younger children were Madame de Bal- 
zac's fafourites, and they and their afFairs gave her 
constant trouble. In 1822 Laurence married a M. 

* The Balzac family will be accorded the " de " in this account of 
them. 



26 HONORE DE BALZAC 

Saint-Pierre de Montazaigle, apparently a good 
deal older than herself; and Honoré gves a very 
couleur de rose account of hs future brother-n-law's 
family, n a letter written at the time of the engage- 
ment to Laure, who was already married. He does 
not seem so charmed with the bridegroom, il trouba- 
dour o, as with his surroundings, and remarks that 
he lias lost his top teeth, and s very conceited, but 
will do well enough — as a husband. Every one is 
delighted at the marriage; but Laure can imagine 
maman s state of nervous excitement from lier 
recollection of the last few days before her own 
wedding, and can fancy that lie and Laurence are 
not enjoying themselves. "Nature surrounds roses 
with thorns, and pleasures with a crowd of troubles. 
Mamma folio ws the example of nature." * 

Laurence's death, n 1826, must hâve been a ter- 
rbîe gref to the poor mother; but she may hâve rea- 
lsed later on that lier daughter had escaped much 
trouble, as n 1836 the Balzac family threatened M. 
de Montzaigle with a lawsuit on the subject of his 
son, who was left to wonder about Paris without 
food, shoes, or clothes. We cannot suppose that 
any one wth such sketchy views of the duties of a 
father could hâve been a particularly satisfactory 
husband; but perhaps Laurence died before sh had 
tim to discover M. de Montzaigle's deficiencies. 

Henry, the younger son, appears to hâve been 
brought up on a différent method from that pur- 
sued with Honoré* as we hear n 1821 that Madame 

* " Choses Vues," by Victor Hugo. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 27 

de Balzac considered that the boy was unhappy and 
bored with school, that he was with canting people 
who punished hm for nothing, and must be taken 
away. Evidently the younger son was the mother's 
darling; but her mode of bringing him up was not 
happy in its eff ects, as he seems to hâve given con- 
tinuai anxiety and troube. He came back from the 
colonies with his wife; and by threatening to blow 
out his brains, he worked on his mother's feelings, 
and induced her to help him with money, and nearly 
to run herself . In conséquence she was oblged for 
a time to take up her abode with Honoré, an ar- 
rangement whichk did not work well. Ecen when 
Henry was at last shipped off to the Indies, he con- 
tinued to agitate his family by sending them pa- 
thetic accounts of his distress and necessities, and 
thèse letters from her much-loved son must hâve 
been peculiarly painful to Madame de Balzac. 

Honoré and his mother seem ne ver to hâve un- 
derstood each other very well; and she was stern 
with him and Laure in their youth, while she lavished 
caresses on her younger children. Likeness to a f a- 
ther is not always a passport to a mother's favour, 
and Madame de Balzac does not appear to hâve rea- 
lised lier son's genius, and evidently f eared that, 
without due repression in youth, the paternal type 
of imaginative optimist would be repeated. 

She was not a tender mother in childhood, when 
indeed she saw ittle of Honoré, as she left him out 
at nurse till he was four years old, and sent him to 
school when he was eight; but later on in ail prac- 



28 HONORE DE BALZAC 

tical matters she did lier best for him, lending him 
money when he was in difficulties, and looking after 
his business affairs when he was away from Paris. 
She was evidently easily offended, and rather ab- 
surdly tenacious of her maternai dignity; so that 
sometimes the déférence and submission of the great 
writer are surprising and rather touching. On the 
other hand it must be remembered that Honoré made 
great demands on his f riends, that they were expected 
to accord continuai sympathy and admiration, to be 
perfectly tactful in their criticisms, and were only 
very occasionally allowed to give advice. Therfore 
his opinion of his mother's coldness may hâve sprung 
from her f ailure to answer to the requirements of his 
peculiar code of affection, and not from any real want 
of live on her part. 

Certainly her severity in his youth had the effect of 
concentrating the whole dévotion of Honoré's childish 
heart on Laure, the cara sorella of his later years. 
She was a writer, the author of " Le Compagnon du 
Foyer." To her we owe a charming sketch of her 
ceiebrated brother, and she was the confldante of his 
hopes, ambitions, and troubles, of his sentimental 
friendships, and of the faults and embarrassments 
which he confided to no one else. Expressions of af- 
fection for her occur constantly in his letters, and in 
1887 he writes to Madame Hanska that Laure is ill, 
and therefore the whole universe seems ont of gear, 
and that he passes whole nights in despair because she 
is everything to him. The friendschip between the 

* " H de Balzac — Correspondance," vol i. p. 41. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 29 

brother and sister was dep, devoted, and faithful, as 
Balzac's friendships generally were — he did not care, 
as he said in one of his letters, for amitis d'épiderme — 
and the restriction put on his intercourse with his his- 
ter by the jealousy of M. Surville was one of the 
raany troubles which darkened his later years. 

Occasionally, indeed, there were disagreements be- 
tween th brothr and sistr, whn Honoré did not ap- 
prov of Laur's aspirations for authorship. The only 
subject which really caused coldness on both sides, 
however — and this was temporary — was Laure's want 
of sympathy for Balzac's attachrnent to Madame 
Hanska; because she, like many of his friends, felt 
doubtfui whether his passionate love was returned in 
anything like an equal measure. Perhaps, too, there 
may hâve lurked in the siter's mind a slight jealousy 
of his alien grande dame, who had stolen away her 
brother's heart from France, who moved n a sphère 
quite unlike that of the Balzac family, and whose ex- 
istence prevented several advantageous and sensible 
marriages which she could hâve arranged for Monoré. 
Balzac, it must be allowed, was not always tact fui in 
his descriptions of the perfections of the Hanska fam- 
ily, who were, of course, in his eyes, surrounded with 
auréoles borrowed from the light of his " polar star." 
It must hâve been distinctly annoying, when the vir- 
tues, talents, and charms of the Young Countess An- 
na were held up as an object lesson for Madame Sur- 
ville' s two daughters, who were no doubt, from their 
mother's point of view, quite as admirable as Madame 
Hanska's ewe lamb. Nevertheless, there was never 



30 HONORE DE BALZAC 

any real séparation between the brother and sister; 
and it is to Laure that — certain of her participation 
in his joy — poor Balzac penned his delighted letter 
the day after his wedding, signed " Thy brother 
Honoré, at the summit of happiness." 

Laure's own career was chequered. In 1820 she 
married an engineer, M. Midy de la Greneraye Sur- 
ville, and from the flrst the marriage was not very 
happy, as Honoré writes, a month after it took place, 
to blâme Laure for her melancholy at the séparation 
from her f amily, and to counsel philosophy and piano 
practice. Possibly Balzac's habits of ascendency over 
those he loved, and his wonderful gift of fascina- 
tion — a gift which often provides its possessor with 
bitter enemies among those outside its ilnfluence — 
made matters difficult for his brother-in-law, and did 
not tend to promote harmony between Laure and her 
husband. M. Surville probably became exasperated 
by useless attempts to vie in his wife's eyes with her 
much-beloved brother — at any rate, in later years he 
was tyrannical in preventing their intercourse, and we 
hear of the unf ortunate Laure coming in secret to see 
Balzac, on her birthday in 1836, and holding a watch 
in her hand, because she did not dare to stay away 
longer than twenty minutes. There were other wor- 
ries for Laure and her husband, for, like the rest of 
the Balzac family, they were in continuel difficulty 
about money matters. M. Surville seems to hâve 
been a man of enterprise, and to hâve had many 
schemes on hand — such as making a latéral canal on 
the Loire from Nantes to Orléans, building a bridge 



HONORE DE BALZAC 31 

in Paris, or constmcting a little railway. Speaking 
of the canal, Balzac cheerfully and airily remarked 
in 1836 that only a capital of twenty-six millions of 
francs required collecting, and then the Survilles 
would be on the high road to prosperity. This trifling 
matter was not after ail arranged, if we may judge 
from the fact that in 1849 the Survilles moved to a 
cheap lodging, and were advised by Balzac, in a let- 
ter from Russia, to f ollow his habit of former days, 
and to cook only twice a week. In fact, they were 
evidently passing through one of those monetary cri- 
ses to which we become used when reading the annals 
of the Balzacs, and which irresistibly remind the reader 
of similar affairs in the Micawber f amily. 

In spite of the friction on the subject of Madame 
Surville, there was never apparently any actual breach 
between Honoré and his brother-in-law ; indeed, he 
speaks several times of workng amicably with M. Sur- 
ville, in a vain attempt to put in order the hopelessly 
involved web of family affairs. He evidently had 
great faith in his brother-in-law' s plans for making 
his fortune, and took the keenest interest in them, 
even ofFering to go over to London, to sell an inven- 
tion for eifecting economy in the construction of in- 
clined planes on railway s. But M. Surville changed 
his mind at the last, and Balzac never went to Eng- 
land after tll. 

Honoré and Laure were together during teh time 
of their earliest childhood, as they were elft at the cot- 
tage of the same foster-mother, and did not corne 
home till Honoré was four vears old. His sister savs, 



32 HONORE DE BALZAC 

" My recollections of his tenderness date far back. I 
hâve not forgotten the headlong rapidity with which 
lie ran to save me from tumbling down the three high 
steps without a railing, which led from our nurse's 
room to the garden. His loving protection continued 
after we returned to our father's house, where, more 
than once, he allowed himself to be punished for my 
faults, without betraying me. Once, when I came 
upon the scène in time to accuse myself of the wrong, 
he said, 'Don't acknowledge next time — I like to be 
punished for y ou." " * 

Both children were in great awe of their parents, 
and Honorés f ear of his mother was extrême. Years 
after, he told a friend that he was never able to hear 
her voice without a trembling which deprived him of 
his faculties. Their father treated them with uni- 
form kindness, but Honoré's heart was filled with 
love for his kind grandparents, to whom he paid a 
visit in Paris in 1604. He came back to Tours with 
wonderful stories of the beauties of their house, their 
garden, and their big dog Mouche, with whom he had 
made great friends. The news of his grandfather's 
death a few months later was a great grief to him, 
and made a deep impression on his chidish mind. His 
sister tells us that long afterwards, when the two were 
receiving a reprimand from their mother, and he saw 
Laure unabie to control a wld burst of laughter, which 
he knew would lead to serious conséquences, he trie;] 

* " Balzac, sa vie et ses œuvres, d'après sa correspondance," by 
Madame L. Surville (see de Balzac.) 



HONORE DE BALZAC 33 

to stop her by whispering in tragic tones, " Think 
about your grandfather's death!" 

He was a child of very deep affections and warmth 
of heart, but he did not show any spécial intelligence. 
He was lively, merry, and extremely talkative, but 
sometimes a silent mood would f ail on him, and per- 
haps, as his sister says, his imagination was then car- 
rying him to distant worlds, though the family only 
thought the chatterbox was tired. In ail ways, how- 
ever, he was in thèse days a very ordinary child, devot- 
ed to f airy stories, fond of the popular nursery amuse- 
ment of making up plays, and charmed with the ex- 
cruciating noise he brought out of a little red violin. 
This he would sometimes play on for hours, till even 
the faithful Laure would remonstrate, and he would 
be astonished that she did not realise the beauty of 
his music. 

This happy childish life, chastened only by the 
tremors which both children left when taken by their 
governess in the morning and at bedtime into the 
stem présence of their mother, did not last very long 
for Honoré. When he was eight years old (his sis- 
ter says seven, but this seems to be a mistake), there 
was a sudden change in his life, as the home authori- 
ties decided that it was time his éducation should begin 
in good earnest. He was therefore taken from the 
day school at Tours, and sent to the semi-military col- 
lège founded by the Oratorians in the sleepy little 
town of Vendôme. On page 7 of the school record 
there is the following notice: "No. 460. Honoré 
Balzac, âgé de huit ans un mois. A eu la petite 



34 HONORE DE BALZAC 

vérole, sans infirmités. Caractère sanguin, s'éshauf- 
fant, et sujet à quelques fièvres de chaleur. Entré au 
pensionnat le 22 juin, 1807. Sorti, le 22 août, 1813. 
S'adresser à M. Balzac, son père, à Tours." * Thus 
is summed up the character of the future whiter of 
the " Comédie Humaine," and there is apparently 
nothing remarkable or precocious about the boy, as his 
quick temper is his most saiient point inn the eyes of 
his masters. It will be noticed, too, that the " de, " 
about which Balzac was very particular, and which 
was the occasion of many scofling remarks on the part 
of his enemies, does not appear on his register. 

Honoré was a small boy to hâve been completely 
separated from home, and the whole scheme of édu- 
cation as devised by the Oratorian fathers appears to 
hâve been a strange one. One of the rules forbade 
outside holidays, and Honoré never left the collège 
once during the six years he was at school; so that 
there was no supervision from his parents, and no 
chance of complaint if he were unhappy or ill treated. 
His family came to see him at Easter and also at the 
prize-givings ; but on thèse occasions, to which he 
looked forward, his sister tells us, with eager delight, 
reproaches were generally his portion, on account of 
of his want of success in school work. In " Louis 
Lambert " he gives an interesting account-of the col- 
lège, which was in the middle of the town on the little 
river Loir, and contained a chapel, théâtre, infirmary. 
bakery, and gardens. There were two or three hun- 
dred pupils, divided according to their âges or attain- 

* kk Balzac an Collège," by Champfleury. 



HOXOR EDE BALZAC 35 

ment s into four classes— les grands, les moyens, les 
petits, and els minimes — and each elass had its own 
class-room and courtyard. Balzac was considered 
the idlest and most apathetic boy in his division, and 
was continually punished. Iteproaches, the férule, 
the dark cell, were his portion, and with his quick and 
délicate sensés lie sufFered intensely from the want of 
air in the class-rooms. There, according to the graph- 
ie picture in " Lous Lambert," everything was dirty, 
and eighty boys inhabited a hall, in the centre of 
which were two buckets full of water, where al washed 
their faces and hands every morning, the water being 
only renewed once in the day. To add to the odours, 
the air was vitiated by the smell of pigeons killed for 
fête days, and of dishes stolen from the refectoiy, 
and kept by the pupils in their lockers. The boy 
who, in the future, was to awaken actual physical dis- 
gust in his readers by his description of the stuffy and 
dingy boarding-house dining-room in " Le Père Gor- 
iot," was crushed and stupefîed by his surroundings, 
and would sit for hours with his head on his hand, 
not attempting to learn, but gazing dreamily at the 
clouds, or at the foliage of the trees in the court be- 
low. No wonder that he was the despair of his mas- 
ters, and that his famous " Traité de la volonté," 
which he composed instead of preparing the ordinary 
school work, was summarily conflscated and destroyed. 
So many were the punishment lines given him to 
Write, that his holidays were almost entirely taken up, 
and he had not six days of liberty the whole time that 
he was at the collège. 



36 HONORE DE BALZAC 

In addition to the troubles incident to Honoré's pe- 
culiar tempérament and genius, he had in the winter, 
like the other pupils, to submit to actual physical suf- 
fering. The priée of éducation included also that 
of clothing, the parents who sent their children to the 
Vendôme Collège paying a yearly sum, and there- 
with comfortably absolvnig themselves from ail 
trouble and responsibility. But the results were not 
happy for the boys, who dragged themselves painf ul- 
ly along the icy roads in misérable remuants of boots, 
their feet half dead, and swollen with sores and chil- 
blains. Out of sixty children, not ten walked without 
torture, and many of them would cry with rage as 
they limped along, each step being a painf ul effort; 
but with the invincible physical pluck and moral cow 
ardice of childhood, would hide their tears, for fear 
of ridicule from their companions. 

Nevertheless, even to Balzac, who was peculiarly 
unfitted for it, life at the colege had its pleasures. 
The food appears to hâve been good, and the dis- 
cipline at meals not very severe, as a regular System 
of exchange of helpings to suit the particular tastes 
of each boy went on ail through dinner, and caused 
endless amusement. Some one who had received peas 
as his portion would prefer dessert, and the proposi- 
tion " Un dessert pour des pois " would pass from 
Other pleasures were the pet pigeons, the gardens, 
the sweets bought secrety during the waks ,the per- 
mission to play cards and to hâve theatrical per- 
formances during the holidays, the military music, 
the games, and the slides made in winter. Best of 



HONORE DE BALZAC 37 

ail, however, was the shop which opened in the class- 
room evry Sunday during playtime fro the sale of 
boxes, tools, pigeons of ail sorts, mass-books (for 
thèse there was not much demand) , knives, balls, pen- 
cils — everything a boy could wish for. The proud 
possessor of six francs — meant to last for the terni — 
felt that the contents of the whole shop were at his 
disposai. Saturday night was passed in anxiuos yet 
rapturous calculations, and the responses at Mass dur- 
ing that happy Sunday morning mingled themselyes 
with thoughts of the giorious time coming in the 
afternoon. Next Sunday was not quite to delight- 
ful, as probably there were only a few sous left, and 
possibly some of the purchases were broken, or had 
not turned out quite satisfactorily. Then, too, there 
was a long vista of Sundays in the future, witohut 
any possibility of shopping; but after ail a certain 
amount of compounding is always necessary in life, 
and an intense short joy is worth a grey time before 
and after. 

When Balzac was fourteen years old, his life at the 
collège came suddenly to an end, as, to the alarm of 
his masters, lie was attacked by coma wtih feversh 
symptoms, and they begged his parents to take him 
at once. It is curious to notice that the Fathers make 
no référence to this failure in their educational Sys- 
tem in the school record, where there is no reason 
given for Honoré's departure from school. Certain- 
ly hs life at Vendôme was not very healthy, as some- 
times for idleness, inattention, or impertinence he 
was for months shut up every day in a niche six feet 



38 HONORE DE BALZAC 

square, with a wooden door pierced by holes to let in 
air. When Champfleury visited the collège years 
afterwards, the only person who remembered Balzac 
was the old Father who had charge of thèse cells, 
and he spoke of the boy 's " great black eyes." Con- 
finement in thèse culottes de bois,, as they were called, 
was much dreaded by the boys, and the punishment 
seems barbarous and senseless, except fro mthe point 
of view of getting rid of troublesome pupils. Bal- 
zac, however, welcomed the relief from ordinary 
school lif e, and indeed manŒuvred to be shut up. In 
the cells he had leisure to dream as he pleased, he was 
f ree from the drudgery of learning his lessons, and he 
managed to secrète books in his cage, and thus to ab- 
sorb the contents of most of the volumes in the fine 
lbrary collected by the learned Oratorian founders of 
the collège. The ideas n many of the learned tomes 
were far beyond his âge, but he understood them, re- 
membered them afterwards, and could recall in later 
years not only the thoughts in each book, but also 
the disposition of his mind when he read them. Nat- 
urally this precocity of intellect caused brain fatigue, 
though this would never hâve been suspected by hte 
Fathers of their idlest pupil. 

Honoré, his sister tells us, came home thin and 
puny, like a somnambulist sleeping with open eyes, 
and his grandmother groaned over the strain of 
modem éducation. At first he heard hardly any of 
the questions that were put to him, and his mother 
was obliged to disturb him in rêveries, and to insist 
on his taking part in games with the rest of the fami- 



HONORE DE BALZAC 39 

ly; but with the fresh air and the home life he soon 
recovered his health and spirits, and became again a 
lively, merry boy. He attended lectures at the col- 
lège near, and had tutors at home; but great efforts 
were necessary in order to get into his head the re- 
quisite amount of Greek and Latin. Xevertheless, 
at times he was astonishing, or might hâve been to 
any one with powers of observation. On thèse oc- 
casions he made such extraordinary and sagacious re- 
marks that Madame de Balzac, in her character of 
represser, felt obliged to remark sharply, ' You 
cannotnot possibly understand what you are saying, 
Honoré ! " When Honoré, who dared not argue, 
looked at her with a smile, she would, wtih the ease 
of absolute authority, escape from the awkwardness 
of the situation by remarking that he was imperti- 
nent. He was already ambitous, and would tell his 
sisters and brother about his future famé, and accept 
with a laugh the teasing he received in conséquence. 

It must hâve been during tliis time that he grew to 
love with an enduring love the scenery of his native 
province of Touraine, with its undulating stretches 
of emerald green, through which the Loire or the 
Indre would like a long ribbon of water, while lines 
of polars decked the banks with moving lace. It 
was a smiling country, dotted with vineyards and oak 
woods, while hère and there an old gnarled walnut 
tree stood in rugged independence. The susceptible 
boy, lately escaped from the abominations of the 
stuiFy school-house, drank in with rapture the warm 
scented air, and often describes in his novels the land- 



40 HONORE DE BALZAC 

scape of the province where he was born, which he 
loves, in his own words, " as an artist loves art." An- 
other lasting memory * was that of the poetry and 
splendour of the Cathedral of Saint-Gatien in Tours, 
where he was taken every feastday. There he 
watched with delight the beautiful effects of light 
and shade, the play of colour pjroduced by the rays 
of sunlight shining through the old stained glass, 
and the strange, fascinating effect of the clouds of 
incense, which enveloped the officiating priests, and 
from which he possibly derived the idea of the mists 
which he often introduces into his descriptions. 

* See " Balzac, sa Vie et ses Œuvres, d'après sa Correspondance," par 
Madame L. Surville (née de Balzac). 



CHAPTER III 

Balzac's tutors and law studies — His youth, as pictured in the " Peau 
de Chagrin " — His father's intention of making him a lawyer — He 
begs to be aliowed to become a writer — Is allowed his wish — Life 
in the Rue Lesdiguières, privations and starvation — He writes 
" Cromwell," a trageay. 

At the end of 1814 the Balzac family moved to Paris, 
as M. de Balzac was put in charge of the Commis- 
sariat of the First Division of the Army. Hère they 
took a house in the Rue de RoiDoré, in the Marais, 
and Honoré continued his studies with M. Lepitre, 
Rue Saint ?Louis, and MM. Sganzer and Benzelin, 
Rue de Thorigny, in the Marais. To the influence 
of M. Lepitre, a man who, unlike old M. de Balzac 
and many other worthy people, was an ardent Legiti- 
mist before as well as after 1815, we may in part trace 
th strength of Balzac's Royalist principles. On the 
13th Vindémiaire, M. Lepitre had presded over one 
of the sections of Paris which rose against the Con- 
vention; and though on one occasion he failed in 
nerve, his services during the Révolution had been 
most conspicuous. On his réception at the Tuileries 
by the Duchesse d'Angoulême, she used thèse words, 
never to be f orgotten by him to whom they were ad- 
dressed: "I hâve not f orgotten, and I shall never 
forget, the services vou hâve rendered to my f ami- 
ly."* 

41 



42 HONORE DE BALZAC 

We can imagine the enthusiasm and delight with 
which the man who, whatever might be his shortcom- 
ings in courage, had always remained firm to his Roy- 
alist principles, and who had been a witness of the ter- 
rible anguish of the prisoners in the Temple, would 
hear thèse words f rom the lips of the lady who stood 
to him as Queen — the Antigone of France — the hero- 
ine whose sufFerings had made the heart of evry loyal 
Frenchman bleed, the brave woman who, according 
to Napoléon, was the one man of her family. Le- 
pitre's visit to the Tuileries took place on May 9th, 
1814>, the year that Balzac began to take those les- 
sons in rhetoric which first opened his eyes to the 
beauty of the French language. During Lepitre's 
tuition he composed a speech supposed to be addressed 
by the wife of Brutus to her husband, after the con- 
demnation of her sons, in which, Laure tells us, the 
anguish of the mother is depicted with great power, 
and Balzac shows his wonderful faculty for entering 
into the soûls of his personages. Lepitre had evi- 
dently a powerful influence over his pupil, and as a 
master of rhetoric he would naturally be éloquent and 
hâve command of language, and in conséquence 
would be most probably of fiery and enthusiastic tem- 
pérament. We ca nimagine the fervour with which 
the impressionable boy drank in stories of the suer- 
ings of the royal family during their imprisonment in 
the Temple, and strove not to miss a syllable of his 
master's magnificent exordiums, which glowed with 
the light and heat of impassioned loyalty. 

No doubt Balzac's " Une Vie de Femme,' a touch- 



HONORE DE BALZAC 43 

ing account of the lif e of the Duchesse d'Aiigoulême, 
which appeared in the Réformateur in 1832, was part- 
y compiled from the réminiscences of his old master; 
and when we hear of his ardent defence of the 
Duchesse de Berry, or that he treasured a tea-service 
which was not of any intrinsic value, because it had 
belonged to the Duc d'Angoulême, we see traces of 
his intense love and admiration for the Bourbon 
family. 

Nevertheless, in that big, well-balanced brain there 
was room for many émotions, and for a wide range of 
sympathies. The many-sidedness which is a neces- 
sary characteristic of every great psychologist, was a 
remarkable quality in Balzac. He may hâve been 
présent at Napoleon's last review on the Carrousel — 
at any rate he tells in " La Femme de Trente Ans " 
how the man "thus surrounded with so much olve, 
enthusiasm, dévotion, prayer — for whom the sun had 
driven every coud fro mthe sky — sat motionless on 
his horse, three feet in advance of the dazzling escort 
that folio wed him," and that an old grenadier said, 
"My God, yes, it was always so; under fîre at Wag- 
ram, among the dead in the Moskowa, he was quiet as 
a lamb — yes, that's he!" Balzac's admiration for 
Napoléon was intense, as he shows in many of his 
writings, and his proudest boast is to be f ound in the 
words, said to hâve been inscribed on a statuette of 
Napoléon in his room in the Rue c assini, " What he 
has begun with the sword, I shall finish with the pen." 

None of Balzac's masters thought much of his 

' " Biographie Universelle," by De Michaud. 



44 HONORE DE BALZAC 

talents, or perceived anything remarkable about him. 
He returned home in 1816, full of health and vigor, 
the personification of happiness ; and his conscientious 
mother immediately set to work to repair the deficien- 
eies of his former éducation, and sent him to lectures 
at the Sorbonne, where he heard extempore speches 
from such men as Villemain, Guizot, and Cousin. 
Apparently this teaching opened a new world to him, 
and he learned for the first time that éducation can 
be more than a dull routine of dry facts, and felt the 
joy of contact with éloquence and learning. Possib- 
ly he realised, as he had not realised before — Tours 
being, as he says, a most unliterary town — that there 
were people in the world who looked on things as he 
did, and who would understand, and not laugh at him 
or snub him. He always returned from thèse lec- 
tures, his sister says, glowing with interst, and would 
try as far as he could to repeat them to his family. 
Then he would rush out to study in the public librar- 
ies, so that he might be able to profit by the teaching 
of his illustrious prof essors, or would wander about 
the Latin Quarter, to hunt for rare and precious 
books. He used his opportunities in other ways. 
An old lady living in the house with the Balzacs had 
been an intimate friend of the great Beaumarchais. 
Honoré loved to talk to lier, and would ask lier lier 
questions, and listen with the greatest interest to lier 
replies, till he could hâve written a Life of the cele- 
brated man himself. His powers of acute observa- 
tion, interest, and sympathy — in short, his intense 
faculty for human fellowship, as well as his capacity 



HONORE DE BALZAC 45 

for assimilating information from books — were al- 
ready at work ; and the future novelist wsa conscious- 
ly or unconsciously collecting material in ail direc- 
tions. 

In 1816 it was considered necessary that he should 
be started with regular work, and he was established 
for eighteen months with a lawyer, M. de Guillonnet- 
Merville, who was, like M. Lepitre, a friend of the 
Balzac family, and an ardent Royalist. Eugène 
Scribe — another amateur lawyer — as M. de Guilon- 
net-Merville indulgently remarked, had just left the 
office, and Honoré was established at the desk and 
table vacated by him. He became very fond of his 
chief , whom he has immortaiised as Derville in " Une 
Ténébreuse Affaire," "Le Père Goriot," and other 
novels; and he dedicated to this old friend " Un Epi- 
sode sous la Terreur," which was published in 1846, 
and is a powerful and touching story of the remorse 
felt by the executioner of Louis XVI. After eigh- 
teen months in this office, he passed the same time in 
that of M. Passez, a notary, who lived in the same 
house with the Balzacs, and was another of their in- 
timâtes. 

Balzac does not appear to hâve made any objection 
to thèse arrangements, though his légal studies can- 
not hâve been congenial to him; but they were only 
spoken of at this time as a finish to his éducation — 
old- M. de Balzac, homme de loi himself, remarking 
that no man's éducation can be complète without a 
knowledge of ancient and modem législation, and an 
acquaintance with the statutes of his of his own coun- 



46 HONORE DE BALZAC 

try. Perhaps Honoré, wiser now than in his school- 
days, had learnt that ail knowledge is equipment for 
the work of the world, and especially for a literary 
life. He certainly made good use of his time, and 
the results can be seen in many of his works, notably 
in the " Ténébreuse Affaire," which contains in the 
aecount of the famous trial a masterly exposition of 
the législature of the Frst Empire, or in " César 
Birotteau," which shows such thorough knowledge of 
the laws of bankruptcy of the time that its compli- 
cated plot cannot be thoroughly understood by any 
one unversed n légal matters. 

Honoré was very well occupied at this time, and 
his mother must hâve felt for once thoroughly satis- 
fied with him. In addition to his study of law, he had 
to follow the course of lectures at the Sorbonne and 
at the Collège of France ; and thèse studies were a de- 
lightful excuse for a very fit fui occupation of his seat 
in the lawyer's office. Besides his multifarious occu- 
pations, he managed in the evening to find time to 
play cards wth his grandmother, who lived with lier 
daughter and son-in-law. The gentle old lady spoilt 
Honoré, his mother considered, and would allow hîm 
to win money from lier, which he joyfully expended 
on books. His sister, who tells us this, says, " He al- 
ways loved those games in memory of lier; and the 
recollecton of lier sayings and of lier gestures used 
to corne to him like a happiness which, as lie said, lie 
wrested from a tomb." 

Otlier recollections of this time were not so pleas- 
ant. Monoré wished to shine in societv. No doubt 



HONORE DE BALZAC 47 

the two " immense and sole desires — to be f amous and 
to be loved" — which haunted him continually, til he 
at last obtained them at the cost of his life, were al- 
ready at work with him, and he longed for the tender 
glanées of some charming demoiselle. At any rate 
he took dancing-lessons, and prepared himself to en- 
ter with grâce into ladies society. Hère, however, a 
terrible humiliation awaited him. After ail his care 
and pains, he slipped and fell in the ball-room, and his 
mortification at the smiles of the women round was 
so great that he never danced agan, but looked on 
lienceforward with the cynicism which he expresses 
in the " Peau de Chargrin." That wonderful book, 
side by side with its philosophical teaching, gives a 
graphie picture of one side of Balzac's restless, fever- 
ish youth, as " Louis Lambart " does of his repressed 
childhood. Neither Louis Lambert nor the morbid 
and selfish Raphaël give, however, the slightest indi- 
cation of Balzac's most salient characteristic both as 
boy and youth — the healthy joie de vivre, the gaity 
and exubearnt merriment, of which his contemparar- 
ies speak constantly, and which shone out undimmed 
even by the wretched health and terrible worries of 
the last few years of his life. In his books, the bitter 
and melancholy side of things reigns almost exclusive- 
ly, and Balzac, using Raphaël as his mouthpiece, 
says: "Women one and ail hâve condemned me. 
With tears and mortification I bowed before the dé- 
cision of the world; but my distress was not barren. 
I determined to revenge myself on society; I would 
dominate the féminine intellect, and so hâve the f emi- 



48 HONORE DE BALZAC 

nine soûl at my mercy; ail eyes should be fixed upon 
me, when the servant at the door announced my name. 
I had determined f rom my childhood that I would be 
a great man. I said with André Chénier, as I struck 
my f orehead, ' There is something underneath that ! ' 
I felt, I believed, the thought within me that I must 
express, the System I must establish, the knowledge I 
must interpret." In another place in the same book 
the bitterness of his social failure again peeps out: 
"The incomprehensibe bent of women's minds ap- 
pears to ead them to see nothing but the weak points 
in a élever man and the strong points of of a foo." 

Reading thèse woïds, we can imagine poor Honoré, 
a proud, supersensitive boy, leaning against the wall 
in the ball-room, and watching enviously while agree- 
able nonentities basked in the smiles he yearned for. 
ît was a hard lot to feel within him the intuitive 
knowledge of his genius ; to hear the insistent voice of 
his vocation calling him not to be as ordinary men, 
but to give his message to the world; and yet to hâve 
the misérable consciousness that no one believed in 
his talents, and that there was a huge discrepancy 
between his ambition and his actual attainments. 

In 1820 Honoré attained his majority and flnished 
his légal studies. Unfortunately the pecuniary mis- 
fortunes which were to haunt ail this génération of 
the Balzac family were beginning — as old M. de Bal- 
zac had lost money n two spéculations, and now at 
the âge of seventy-four was put on the retired list, 
a change which meant a considérable diminution of 
income. He there fore explained to his son — 



HONORE DE BALZAC 49 

Madame Surville tells us — that M. Passez, to whom 
he had f ormerly been of service, had in gratitude of- 
f ered to take Honoré into his office, and at the end 
of a few years would leave him his business, when, 
with the additional arrangement of a rich marriage, 
a prosperous future would be assured to him. Old 
M. de Balzac did not specify the nature of the service 
which was to meet with so rich a reward; and as he 
was a gentleman with a distinct liking for talking of 
his own doings, we may amuse ourselves by supposing 
that it had to do with thise Red Republican days 
which he was not fond of recalling. 

Great was Honoré's consternation at this news. 
In the first place, owing to M. de Balzac's constant 
vapourings about the enormous wealth he would 
leave to his children, it is doubtful whether Honoré, 
who was probably not admitted to his parents' confi- 
dence, had reaiised up to this time that he would hâve 
to earn his own living. Then, if it were necessary 
for him to work for his bread, he now knew eough of 
the routine of a lawyer's office to look with horror on 
the prospect of drawing up wills, deeds of sale, and 
marriage settlements for the rest of his life. He 
never forgave the légal profession the shock and the 
terror he experienced at this time, and his portraits 
of lawyers, with some notable exceptions, are marked 
by decided animus. For instance, in " Les Français 
peints par eux-mêmes," edited by Cummer, the 
notary, as described by Balzac, has a flat, expression- 
less face and wears a mask of bland silliness; and in 
" Paméla Giraud " one of the characters remarks, " A 



50 HONORE DE BALZAC 

lawyer who talks to himself — that reminds me of a 
pastrycook who eats his own cakes." It was rather 
unfair to decry ail lawyers, because of the deadly 
fear he felt at the prospect of being foced into their 
ranks, as there is little doubt that he would hâve 
shrunk with like abhorrence from any business pro- 
posed to him. His childish longing for famé had 
developed and taken shape, and for him, if he lacked 
genius, there was no alternative but the dragging 
out of a worthless and wearying existence. Con- 
scious of his powers, it was a time of struggle, of pas- 
sionate endeavour, possibly of bewilderment ; with 
the one great détermination standing flrm in the 
midst of a chaos of doubt and difficulty — the déter- 
mination to persévère, and to become a writer at any 
cost. 

He therefore, to his father's consternation, an- 
nounced his objection to folio wing a légal career, and 
begged to be allowed an opportunity of proving his 
literary powers. Thereupon there were lively dis- 
cussions in the family; but at last the kindly M. de 
Balzac, apparently against his wife's wishes, yielded 
to his son's earnest entreaties, and allowed him two 
years in which to try his fortune as a writer. The 
friends of the family were loud in their exclamations 
of disapproval at the folly of this proceeding, which 
would, they said, waste two of the best years of 
Honoré's life. As far as they could see, he possessed 
no genius ; and even if he were to succeed in a literary 
career, he would certainly not gain a fortune, which 
after ail was the principal thing to be considered. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 51 

However, either the strenuousness and force of 
Honores arguments, or the softness of Jais father's 
heart, prevailed in his f avour ; and in spite of the op- 
position of the whole of his little world, he was al- 
lô wed to hâve his own way, and to make trial of his 
powers. The rest of the family retired to Villepa- 
risis, about sixteen miles from Paris, and he was es- 
tablished in a small attic at No. 9, Rue Lesdiguières, 
which was chosen by him for its nearness to the Bibli- 
othèque de l'Arsenal, the only public library of which 
the contents were unknown to him. At the same 
time, appearances, always ail-important in the Balzac 
family, were observed, by the fiction that Honoré was 
at Alby, on a visit to a cousin ; and in this way his lit- 
erary venture was kept secret, in case it proved un- 
successful. 

Having arranged this, and asserted himself to the 
extent of nsisting that his son should be allowed a 
certain amount of freedom in choosing his career, 
even if he flxed on a course which seemed suicidai, old 
M. de Balzac appears to hâve retired from the direc- 
tion of affairs, and to hâve left his energetic wife to 
folio w her own will about détails. There was no 
doubt in that lady's mind as to the methods to be pur- 
sued. Her husband had been culpably weak, and 
had allowed himself to be swayed by the freak of a 
boy who hated work and wanted an excuse for idle- 
ness. Honoré must be brought to reason, and be 
taught that " the way of transgressors is hard," and 
that people who refuse to take their fair share of 
life's labour must of necessity suffer from depriva- 



52 HONORE DE BALZAC 

tion of their butter, if not of their bread. Her hus- 
band was an old man, and had lost money, and t was 
most exasperatng that Honorée should refuse a 
splendid chance of securing his own future, and one 
which would most probably never occur again. To a 
good business woman, who did not naturally share 
in the boundless optimistic views of M. de Balzac for 
the future, the crass folly of yeilding to the wishes 
of a boy who could not possibly know what was best 
for him, was glaringly apparent. However, being a 
practical woman, when she had done her duty in mak- 
ing the household — except the placid M. de Balzac — 
thoroughly uncomfortable, and had most probably 
driven Honoré almost wild with suppressed irrita- 
tion,, she embarked on the plan of campaign which 
was to bring the culprit back, repentant and submis- 
sive, to the lawyer's desk. 

To accomplish this as quckly as possible, it was 
necessary to make him extremely uncomfortable; so 
having furnished his attic with the barest necessities 
— a bed, a table, and a f ew chairs — she gaev him such 
a scanty allowance that he would hâve starved if an 
old woman, la mère Comin, whom he termed his Iris, 
had not been told to go occasionally to look after him. 
In spite of the gaiety of Balzac's letters from his gar 
ret, the hardships he went through were terrible, and 
in later years he could not speak of his sufFerings at 
this time without tears coming to his eyes. Appar 
ently he could not even afford to hâve a fire; and the 
attic was extremely draughty, blasts coming from the 
to his sister he begs her, when sending the coverlet for 



HONORE DE BALZAC 53 

which he has already asked, to let him hâve a ver y old 
shawl, which he can wear at night. His legs, where 
he feels the cold most, are wrapped in an ancient 
coat made by a small tailor of Tours, who to his dis- 
gust used to alter his f ather's garments to fit him, and 
was a dreadful bungler; but the upper half of his 
body is only protected by the roof and a flannel waist- 
coat f rom the f rost, and he needs a shawl badly. He 
also hopes for a Dantesque cap, the kind his mother 
aiways makes for him; and this pattern of cap from 
the hands of Madame de Balzac figures in the ae- 
counts of his attire later on in his life. It is not 
surprising that he has a cold, and later on a terrible 
toothache; but it is astonishing that, in spite of cold, 
hunger, and discomfort, he préserves his gaiety, 
piuck, and power of making light of hardships, traits 
of character which were to be strikingly salient ail 
through his hard, fatiguing career. In spite of the 
misery of his surroundings, he had many compensa- 
tions. He had gained the wish of his heart, life was 
before him, beautiful dreams of future famé floated 
in the air, and at présent he had no hateful burden of 
debt to weigh him down. Therefore he managed to 
ignore to a great extent the physical pain and dis- 
comfort he went through, as he ignored them ail 
through life, except when ill health interfered with 
the accomplishment of his work. 

Another characteristic which might also be amaz- 
ing, did we not meet it constantly in Balzac's life, is 
his longing for luxury and beauty, and his extraordi- 
nary faculty for embarking in a perfectly business- 



54 HONORE DE BALZAC 

like way on wildly unreasonable schemes. With 
hardly enough money to provide himself with scanty 
meals, he intends to économise, in order to buy a 
piano. " The garret is not big enough to hold one," 
as he casually remarks; but this fact, which, apart 
f rom the starving process necessary in order to obtain 
funds, would appear to the ordinary mind an insur- 
mountable obstacle to the project, does not daunt 
the ever-bopeful Honoré. 

He lias taken the dimensions, he says; and if the 
landlord objects to the expense of moving back the 
wall, he will pay the money himself, and add t to the 
price of the piano. Hère we recognise exactly the 
same Balzac whose vagrant schemes later on were 
listened to by his friends with a mixture of fascina- 
tion and bewilderment, and who, in utter despair 
about his pecuniary circumstances at the beginning 
of a letter, talks airily towards the end of buying a 
costly picture, or acquring an estate in the country. 

There is a curious and striking contrast in Balzac 
between the backwardness in the expression of his 
literary genius, and the early development and crys- 
taîlisation of his character and powers of mind in 
other directions. Even when he realised his voca- 
tion, forsook verse, and began to write novels, he for 
long gave no indication of his future powers; while, 
on the other hand, at the âge of twenty, his views on 
most points were formed, and his judgments mà- 
tured. Therefore, unlike most men, in whom, even 
if there be no violent changes, âge gradually and im- 
perceptibly modifies the point of view, Balzac, a 



HONORE DE BALZAC 55 

youth in his garret, diff ered little in essentials from 
Balzac at forty-five or fifty, a man of world-wide 
celebrity. He never appears to hâve passed through 
those phases of belief and unbelief — those wild en- 
thusiasms, to be rejected later in life — which gener- 
ally f ail to the lot of young men of talent. Perhaps 
his reasoning and reflective powers were developed 
unusaully early, so that he sowed his mental wild oats 
in his boyhood. At any rate, in his garret in 1819 
he was the same Balzac that we know in later life. 
Large-minded and f ar-seeing — except about his busi- 
ness concerns — he was fro mhis youth a voyant, who 
discerned with extraordinary acuteness the trend of 
political events; and with an intense respect for 
authority, he was yet independent, and essentialiy a 
strong man. 

This absolute stability — a fact Balzac often cont- 
inents on — is very remarkable, especally as his was a 
life full of varie ty, during which he was brought into 
contact with many influences. He studied the men 
around him, and gauged their characters — though it 
must be allowed that he did not make very good prac- 
tical use of his knowledge ; but owing to his strength 
and breadth of vision, he was himself in ail essentials 
immovable. 

The same ambitions, desires, and opinions can be 
traced ail through his career. The wish to enter po- 
litical life, which haunted him always, was already 
beginning to stir in 1819, when he wrote at the time 
of the élections to a friend, M. Théodore Dablin, that 
he dreamt of nothing but him and the deputies ; and 



Uf£ 



56 HONORE DE BALZAC 

his last book, " L'Envers de l'Historié contempo- 
raine," accentuated, if possible more than any work 
that had preceded it, the extrême Royalist principles 
which he showed in his garret play, the ill-fated 
" c romwell." 

He ne ver swerved from the two great ambitions of 
his life — to be loved, and to be famous. He was 
faithful in his friendships; and when once he had 
found the woman whom he felt might be ail in ail to 
him, and who possessed besides personal advantages 
the qualifications of birth and money — for which he 
had always craved — no difficulties were allowed to 
stand i nthe way, and no length of weary waiting 
could tire ont his patience. He was constant even 
to his f ailures. He began his literary career by writ- 
ing a play, and ail through his life the idea of making 
his fortune by means of a successful drama recurred 
to him constantly. Several times he went through 
that most trying of expériences, a failure which only 
just missed being a brilliant success, and once this 
a if ected him so much that he became seriously ill ; but. 
with his usual spirit and courage, he tried again and 
again. His friend Théophile Gautier, writing of 
him in La Press of September 30th, 1843, after the 
failure of " Paméla Giraud," said truly that Balzac 
intended to go on writing plays, even if he had to get 
through a hundred acts before he could fînd his 
proper form. 

One part of Balzac never grew up — he was ail his 
life the " child-man " his sister calls him. After 
nights without sleep he would corne out of his solitude 



HONORE DE BALZAC 57 

wth laughter, joy, and excitement to show a new mas- 
terpiece; and this was always more wonderful than 
anything which had preceded it. He was more of a 
child than his nièces, Madame Surville tells us: 
"laughed at puns, envied the lucky being who had the 
' gif t' of making them, tried to do so himself , and 
f ailed, saying regretfully, ' No, that doesn't make a 
pun.' He used to cite with satisfaction the only two 
he had ever made, ' and not much of a success either,' 
he avowed in ail humility, 'for I didn't know I was 
making them,' and we even suspected him of embel- 
lishing them afterwards." * He was delightfully 
simple, even to the end of his life. In 1849 he wrote 
from Russia, where he was confined to his room with 
illness, to describe minutely a beautiful new dressing- 
gown in whch he marched about the room like a sul- 
tan, and was possessed with one of those delightful 
joys which we only hâve at eighteen. " I am writing 
to you now in my termolana," t he adds for the sat- 
isfaction of his correspondent. 

We must now return to Honoré in his attic, where, 
as in later years, he drank much cofFee, and was un- 
able to resist the passion for fruit which was always 
his one gourmandise. He records one day that he 
has eaten two melons, and must pay for the extrava- 
gance wth a diet of dr ybread and nuts, but contem- 
plâtes further starvations to pay for a seat to see 
Talma in " Cinna." 

He writes to his sister: "I feel to-day that riches 

* Balzac, sa Vie et ses Œuvres, d'après sa Correspondance," by 
Madame L. Surville (née de Balzac). 

t " H. de Balzac — Correspondance," vol. ii. p. 418. 



58 HONORE BE BALZAC 

do not make happiness, and that the time I shall pass 
hère will be to me a source of pleasant memories. To 
live according to my fancy; to work as I wish and in 
my own way; to do nothing if I wish it; to dream of 
a beautiful future; to think of you and to know you 
are happy; to hâve as lady-love the Julie of Rous- 
seau; to hâve La Fontaine and Molière as friends, 
Racine for a master, and Père-Lachaise t owalk to, — 
oh! f it would only last always." * 

Père-Lachaise was a favourite resort when he was 
not working very hard ; and it was f rom there that he 
obtaned his finest inspirations, and decided that, of 
ail the feelings of the soûl, sorrow is the most difficult 
to express, because of tis simplicity. Curiously 
enough, he abandoned the Jardin des Plantes because 
he thought it melancholy, and apparently found his 
reflections among the tombs more cheerful. He de- 
cided that the only beautiful epitaphs are single 
names — such as La Fontaine, Masséna, Molière, 
" which tell ail, and make one dream." 

When he returned home to his garret, fresh inter- 
ests awaited him. Sometimes, he tells us in the 
" Peau de Chagrin," he would " study the mosses, 
with their colours revived by showers, or transformed 
by the sun into a brown velvet that fitfully caught 
the light. Such things as thèse formed my récré- 
ations ; the passing poetic moods of daylight, the mel- 
ancholy mists, sudden gleams of sunlight, the silence 
and the magie of night, the mysteries of dawn, the 
smoke-weaths from each chmney; every chance 

* " Correspondance." vol. i. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 59 

event, in f act, in my curions world became f amiliar 
to me." 

Occasionally on Sundays he wonld go to a friend's 
house, ostensibly to play cards — a pastime which he 
hated. He generally, however, managed to escape 
from the eye of his hostess; and eomfortably en- 
sconsed in a window behind thick curtains, or hidden 
behind a high armchair, he wonld pour into the ear of 
a congenial companion some of the thoughts which 
surged through his impetuous brain. Ail his life he 
needed this outlet after concentrated mental labour; 
and sometimes in a friend's drawing-room, if he knew 
himself to be surrounded noly by intimâtes, he wonld 
give full vent to his conversational powers. On thèse 
occasions he would carry his hearers away with him, 
often against their better judgment, by his éloquence 
and verve ; would send them into fits of hearty laugh- 
ter by his sallies, his store of droll anecdotes, his jol- 
lity and gaiety; and would display his consummate 
gifts as a dramatic raconteur. Later in life, after 
lie had raised the enmity of a large section of the 
writing world, and knew that there were many watch- 
ing eagerly to immortalise in print— with gay malice 
and wt on the surface, and bitter spite and hatred be- 
iow — the heedless and possibly arrogant words their 
enemy had uttered in moments of excitement and ex- 
pansion, he grew cautions; and sometimes because of 
this, and sometimes because he was collecting ma- 
terial for his work, he would often be silent in gênerai 
society. To the end, however, he loved a tête-à-tête 
with a sympathetic listener — one, it must be conceded, 



60 HONORE DE BALZAC 

who would be content, except for occasional com- 
ment, to remain himself in the background, as the 
great man wanted a safety-valve for his own im- 
petuous thoughts, and did not generally care to hear 
the paler, less nteresting impressions of his com- 
panion. 

With what longing, in the midst of his harassing 
life in Paris, he would look back to the charming long 
fireside chats he had had with Madame Hanska; and 
as the time to meet lier again came nearer, with what 
satisfaction spécial tit-bits of gossip were reserved to 
be talked over and explained during the long even- 
ings at Wierzehownia ! How he loved to rush in to 
his sister with the latest news of the personages of his 
novels, as well as with brilliant plans to improve his 
gênerai prospects; and with what enthusiasm he 
poured out to Théophile Gautier, or even to Léon 
Gozlan, his confidences of ail sorts! Plans, absurd 
and impossible, but worked out with a business-like 
arrangement of détail which, when, mingled with 
somnambulists and magnetisers, had a weird yet ap- 
parently fascinating efFect on his hears; magnifîcent 
diatribes against the wickedness of his spécial ene- 
mies, journalists, editors, and the Press in gênerai; 
strange f ancies to do with the world where Eugénie 
Grandet or Le Père Goriot had their dwelling, — ail 
thèse ideas, opinions, and feelings came from his lips 
with an éloquence, a force, and a life which were ail 
convincing. Yet by a strange anomaly, which is 
sometimes seen in talkative and apparently unre- 
served people, Balzac in reality revealed very little 



HONORE DE BALZAC 61 

of himself — in fact, we may often suspect him of 
using a flow of apparently spontaneous words as a 
screen to mask some hidden feeling. Therefore, 
when people had considered themselves his intimate 
friends tried to write about hi ma f ter his death, they 
f ound that they really knew little of the essentials of 
the man, and could only string together amusing 
anecdotes, proving him to hâve been eccentric, amus- 
ing, and essentially bon camarade, but giving little 
idea of his real personality and genius. 

Even in thèse early days at the card-parties — 
where sometimes the hostess noticed the défection of 
the two young guests, and, holding a card in each 
white délicate hand, would beckon them to take their 
place at the game, which they would do with humble 
and discomfited faces, like schoolboys surprised at a 
forbidden amusement — M. de Petigny, Balzac's 
companion, must hâve been struck by his openness in 
some respects and the absolute mystery with which he 
surrounded himself in others. Where he lived, what 
he was doing, what his life was like — ail thèse facts 
were hidden from his companion, till he revealed him- 
self at last, on the verge of his hoped-for triumph. 
But, on the other hand, the sentiments and impres- 
sions of which M. de Petigny read afterwards in 
Balzac's books seemed to him only a pale, distant écho 
of the rich and vivid expressions which fell from his 
lips in thèse ntimate talks. Magnetism, in which he 
had a strong faith ail his life, was exercising his 
thoughts greatly. It was " the irrésistible ascen- 
dency of mind over matter, of a strong and immov- 



62 HONORE DE BALZAC 

able will over a soûl open to ail impressions." * Be- 
fore long he would hâve mastered its secrets, and 
would be able to compel every man to obey him and 
every woman to love him. He had already, he an- 
nounced, begun to occupy his fîxed position in life, 
and was on the threshold of a millennium. 

Balzac's glimpses of society were, however, rare, 
and ceased altogether durng the last few months of 
his stay in the Rue Lesdiguières. However, other 
more satisfying pleasures were his: " Unspeakable 
joys are showered on us by the exerton of our mental 
factulties; the quest of ideas, and the tranqul con- 
templation of knowledge; delights indescribable, be- 
cause purely intellectual and impalpable to our 
sensés. So we are obliged to use material terms to 
express the mysteries of the soûl. The pleasure of 
striking out in some lonely lake of clear water, with 
forests, rocks, and flowers around, and the soft stir- 
ring of the warm breeze — ail this would give to those 
who knew them not a very faint idea of the exulta- 
tion with which my soûl bathed itself n the beams of 
an unknown light, hearkened to the awful and uncer- 
tain voice of inspiration, as vision upon vision poured 
from some unknown source through my throbbing 
brain." t 

There was anohter side to the picture, and perhaps 
in this description, written in 1830, Balzac lias 
slightly antedated his joy in his créative powers, and 
describes more correctly his feelings when he wrote 
" Les Chouans," " La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote," 

* Article by M. Jules de Iretigny. 

t " La Peau de Chagrir," by Honoré de Balzac. 



HONORE DE BALZAC 63 

and the " Peau de Chagrin " itself , than those of this 
earlier period of his life, when the difnculties of ex- 
pressing himself so often seemed insurmountable, 
and the hiatus between his ideas and the form in 
which to clothe them was almost impossible to bridge 
over. 

Writing did not at any time corne easily to him, 
and " Stella " and " Coqsigrue," his first novels, were 
never finished; while a comedy, "Les Deux Philos- 
ophes/' was also abandoned n despair. Next he set 
to work at " Cromwell," a tragedy in five acts, which 
was to be his passport to famé. At this play he 
labour ed for months, shutting himself up completely, 
and loving his self -imposed slavery — though his want 
of faculty for versification, and the intense difficulty 
he experienced in finding words for the ideas which 
crowded into his imaginative brain, were decided 
drawbacks. While engaged on this work, he may in 
deed hâve experienced some of the feelings he de- 
scribes in the "Peau de Chagrin," quoted above; for, 
curiously enough, " c romwell," his flrst finished pro- 
duction, was the only one of his early works about 
which lie was deceived, and which he imagined to be 
a chef d'muvre. It was well he had this happy faith 
to sustain him, as, according to the account of M. 
Jules de Petigny, the circumstances under which the 
play was composed rnust, to put the matter mildly, 
hâve been distinctly depressing. 

This gentleman says : " I entered a narrow garret, 
f urnished with a bottomless chair, a rickety table and 
a misérable pallet bed, with two dirty curtains half 



64 HONORE DE BALZAC 

drawn round t. On the table were an inkstand, a 
big copybook scribbled ail over, a jug of lemonade, a 
glass, and a morsel of bread. The heat in this 
wretched hole was stifling, and one breathed a me- 
phitic air which would hâve given choiera, if choiera 
had then been nvented!" Balzac was in bed, with a 
cotton cap of problematic colour on his head. ' You 
see," he said, "the abode I hâve not left except once 
for two months — the evening when you met me. 
During ail this time I hâve not got up from the bed 
whére I work at the great work, for the sake of which 
I hâve condemned myself to this hermit's life, and 
which happily I hâve just flnished, for my powers 
hâve corne to an end." It must hâve been during 
thèse last months in his garret, when he neglected 
everything for his projected masterpiece, that, cov- 
ered with vermin from the dirt of his room, he would 
creep out in the evening to buy a candie, which, as he 
possessed no candlestick, he would put in an empty 
bottle. 

The almost insance ardour for and absorption in 
his work, which were his salient characteristics, had 
already possession of him; and we see that he la- 
boured as passionately now for famé and for love of 
his art, as he did later on, when the struggle to free 
himself from debt, and to gain a home and womanly 
companionship were additional incentives to effort. 
At the time of which M. de Petigny speaks, how- 
ever, his troubles appeared to be over, as the master- 
piece for which he had suffered so much was com- 
pleted; and joyfully confident that trimuph awaited 



HONORE DE BALZAC 65 

him. Honoré took it home with him to Villeparisis 
at the end of April, 1620. He was so certain, poor 
fellow, of success, that he had specially begged that 
among those invited to the reading of the tragedy, 
should be the insulting person who told his father 
fîfteen months bef ore, that he was fît for nothing but 
a post as copying clerk. 



NOV 7 1904 



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